


Serpent

by twhitesakura (twsakura)



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 03:00:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/426188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twsakura/pseuds/twhitesakura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. You can send frost away, if you give it form.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serpent

Once upon a time, there lived in the deepest of woods, a sorcerer. He had hair as black as ebony, eyes like cold emeralds, and long and delicate fingers with which he wove clever spells and tricks. One clear night, when the moon hung pregnant over his forest, the sorcerer shed his human form and took on another. The fleshy pink of his limbs turned tough and black, then began to shrink into one continuous curve. The pupils of his eyes narrowed into dark windows. At last, changed completely, he hissed into the frigid wind and stole out of his realm, through the magical barriers erected by the Allfather many centuries ago, and crept for the shining city of Asgard.   
  
In those days, Asgard was newly a place of eternal summer. The sun glinted off the city’s golden spires and a refreshing wind blew softly over its surrounding meadows and orchards. It was here, in Idunn’s golden apple orchard, that Thor, only child of Odin the Allfather, dozed often and wiled away the lazy days of his youth when he was not practicing his sword and callusing his hands in an imitation of the war and glory that would await him as a future warrior. It was here, that the sorcerer slithered coolly over the sleeping boy’s out-flung arm under the shade of an apple tree.   
  
Thor jerked half-awake and gripped the beast that had ruined his nap, pulling the sorcerer by his tail before the god-child realized what he had caught. He smirked bemusedly and let the beast go. The serpent winced as it was released, then turned and glared at him.  
  
“You trespass, little wanderer,” Thor explained, as rosy-faced and as golden as the apples under which he had slept. “Get thee hence, for these orchards are only for those chosen of Asgard and I have roamed far and wide enough to know that a creature like you does not belong to this realm.”  
  
The snake reared up, looking much like a dark, affronted little man, and puffed his chest.  
  
“And who spoke thusly,” the serpent demanded, “that only those of Asgard may tread these lands?”  
  
Thor frowned.   
  
“Why, Odin the Allfather.”  
  
“And is he my father?” asked the snake. “Surely his decree is only to be followed by his subjects and surely, by your own admittance,” the snake added, “I am not one of them.”  
  
The snake slithered nearer.  
  
“Does Odin chide the sun for stealing into his gardens, the shadows for finding shelter under his leaves, berate the winged who travel between worlds with only the wind as their anchor? Nay, I think not.”  
  
Thor’s frown grew thunderous and he made to catch the silver-tongued serpent, but the creature darted quickly into a nearby mole’s burrow, and Thor was left grasping empty air.   
  
  
When Thor next saw the serpent, it had crept up into a tree branch and had knotted itself there like a gleaming coil of wire. Thor prodded the serpent gently and the snake opened one green eye.  
  
“We have not finished exchanging words, you and I.”  
  
The snake gave a great yawn, exposing the pink of its gums and the sharp edges of its fangs before they retracted and the weaponed maw closed.  
  
“And were we sharing words, when last we met?” The snake said, still assessing Thor with one bright animal eye. “Unless Asgardians have decided, at last, to mince their words and speak only with their fists, then I’m afraid I’m at a bit of a disadvantage.” The snake uncurled its body loosely from the tree branch, as if helplessly illustrating its lack of arms and legs.  
  
Thor snorted.  
  
“Your teeth are as good as any man’s fists, perhaps even better.”  
  
The snake laughed.   
  
“Would you like to be bitten then, Thor, son of Odin?”  
  
Thor startled.  
  
“You know my name,” Thor frowned, “but I did not give it.”  
  
“I know a great many things,” the snake replied offhandedly, and dropped from his branch, and peered up at Thor. “Although, I did think that a prince would have honor enough to give his name before any fight.”  
  
“I do not give my name to any lowly vagabond, stranger or foe.”  
  
“Ah, but  _I_  do,” replied the snake. “You may call me, Loki.”  
  
With that last remark, the snake slithered into a patch of shadow where he melted from sight.  
  
  
Thor grew as time passed and often, he found the snake in the orchard. Eventually, he no longer saw Loki as an intruder but as an intermittent visitor. The snake never took any apples and Thor did not see the need to tell Odin about the strange creature. Thor had never seen Loki hunt and sometimes he fancied that the beast lived on dew.   
  
“Do not be ridiculous,” Loki said, curling his weight across Thor’s arm, shoulder, and around the new wide girth of his neck. The creature’s scaly skin sent a curious sensation along his nape and made Thor shiver. “I am no god and I eat.”  
  
“And just what  _do_  you eat?”  
  
Instead of replying, Loki bumped his head affectionately against Thor’s chin, downy with new stubble, and drew warmth away from it in a cool kiss.  
  
  
On especially sweltering days, Thor would lay naked in the garden and let Loki crawl paces over his body, culling excess heat away.   
  
“It seems to be getting hotter all the time,” Thor complained, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.   
  
“That is because your father has sent the frost away,” said Loki and continued his tread across the flat planes of Thor’s stomach, the knotty knolls of his knees. Thor thought he was unusually decorous about avoiding the more intimate places for all that Loki was a snake and necessarily nude all the time.   
  
“You cannot  _send_  frost away,” Thor snorted.   
  
“Oh, but you can,” Loki said, “if you give it form and bind it in magic and scatter it far enough where there is only darkness and cold and stillness.”  
  
“And where would this place be?”  
  
“A dying world, where the trees are ice and bear no fruit, and only the moon hangs heavy with promise.”  
  
“It sounds like a lonely place.”  
  
“It is a very  _hungry_  place,” Loki corrected, and flicked his serpent’s tongue across Thor’s lips.  
  
  
It was only after Thor’s first battle, when Thor was still fevered with battle lust and drenched with the hot blood of his enemies, that Loki revealed his other form.   
  
Thor had made to the orchard to think and calm his trembling limbs, but Loki slithered into his embrace and teased his ear and sang songs to him, to make him forget the howls of the dying. Loki ate the blood from his fingers and kneaded the fire in his belly with sinuous purpose and when Thor gripped Loki, he felt the smooth scales become even smoother skin, yielding like ordinary Aesir flesh. Loki kissed him and Thor opened his mouth, letting a tongue as wet and lurid as his own dive in and play, teeth biting him teasingly.  
  
Loki drew away, with a man’s grace and want in his eyes, and opened his legs in an inviting way that Thor had only seen maidens do but had never made Thor’s breath catch quite as it did now.   
  
“Come,” Loki purred. “Come into me.”  
  
And Thor did.   
  
  
Thor ran his hands wonderingly over Loki’s legs. His seed was just cooling in Loki, sluggishly staining Loki’s thighs white, but already Loki’s skin was becoming dry and brittle and dark as ebony.   
  
“Stay,” Thor said, voice hoarse from moaning and promises.   
  
Loki smiled sadly.   
  
“I can’t,” Loki said, and Thor held a serpent in his arms.


End file.
